Two beach houses in Rodanthe fell into the Atlantic Ocean Friday, according to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
One collapse happened in the early morning and damaged an adjacent home on G A Kohler Court.
Later that night, that neighboring home also collapsed, washing out into the ocean "before the bulk of it returned to the beach," the Seashore said in a news release.
That makes four houses on the Outer Banks to collapse this year — and nine over the past four years. No one was living inside them or injured.
Local officials say many more homes are at risk.
The National Park Service is urging people to avoid the beach and water on the north end of Rodanthe and for several miles south, due to possible dangerous debris. Some beaches will likely be temporarily closed.
The Seashore said officials have seen varying levels of debris from Friday's collapse stretching about nine miles south.
The property owners — one of whom lives in Hampton — have hired contractors to start cleaning up the mess, officials said.
The Outer Banks are made up of barrier islands that have always been vulnerable to erosion. But sea level rise and more intense storms driven by climate change are exacerbating the problem.
In the summer of 2022, the National Park Service ramped up efforts to combat the issue, including shutting down routes around threatened homes during storms and relaying concerns to property owners about structural stability of their houses and surrounding infrastructure.
Last year, the NPS used grant funding to buy two at-risk homes in Rodanthe on East Beacon Road, and tore them down in November.
The Park Service said the two houses could be the start of a larger program to purchase vulnerable properties – but they’d need a lot more funding to do so.
